[sabes]

I’m looking for advice on the 5.1 HT setup in my family room. While the primary purpose is watching movies, it’s also the place where I want to listen to orchestral music, sacds and dvd concerts, and I don’t want to sacrifice the musicality that I’ve come to expect from my 2-channel rig. After reading the exhaustive review of pre/pro’s on the legendary zissou thread (avsforum), I jumped for the proceed avp. And the proceed does sound good with movies, but I've come to feel it's lacking when it comes to the music (warm, to a little muddy). Recommendations for a pre/pro that will do the trick?

Here’s the setup: a nomad audio “behemoth” (19" Wide, 13" Deep 8" Tall, and about 60lbs; a custom 7ch. Amplifier; 4 PSU's, one for each front channel, the L and R are bi-amplified, with 180W into 4 Ohms for the tweeter, and 400W into 4 ohms for the woofers.  The center is a full mono channel, and the rear 180W amplifiers are a stereo pair), sony ns9100es dvp, a fully-modded squeezebox2 , custom in-wall tyler acoustics linbrook signature lcr monitors/taylo rears/velodyne dd-12 with power coming through an exactpower ep15a.

Thanks!

[Mag]

I also have the Sony NS9100es and feel the same way you do when used with stereo sources. So I suggest checking out a dac such as the Bryston BDA-1 or other brand name you prefer.

I think this might change your mind about your processor. If not then you know the av is the weak link.

[Mr Peabody]

I have found Anthem makes a good sounding pre/pro.  I'm not current with new models but Arcam has made some good ones as well.  I used to have a Primare 31.7 that had excellent sound quality.  It wasn't feature rich but the sound is hard to beat.  I wanted to upgrade to HDMI and some other updates but sound quality ended up being a step backward when switching from the 31.7.

Another option, if you could find a universal player with good bass management and speaker setup Conrad Johnson and McCormack both make 5 channel analog preamps with no video processing.  But many hate to give up that video switching convenience.  How about a nice Esoteric universal player to go with one of those analog pre's?

[skunark]

I've always been interested in the AR MP1 and the Parasound P7 for 2ch and multi-channel audio.  They are at opposite ends of the price scale but  they have me curious, but it is just sad that the local dealer which carries both brands don't have either model for auditions.

[targa02]

I used the conrad johnson met 1 fed by analog outs on my blu ray and sacd players with very good results.  The met one is essentially 3 conrad johnson pv15 preamps in one.  No processor, so you have to feed it analog.  If you are only using it for movies and music it is an awesome solution.  For TV I used the analog out on the cable receiver (2 channel) and then used the ARM function (ambient retrieval mode) on the preamp to synthesize surround sound.  I am selling mine as I am going to try the Spatial Computer set up.  Below is the link to my Agon ad:

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?preatube&1277789772&item